14 March 2013

When I Listen to my iTunes Library Sorted Alphabetically by Album #1

Colin Newman was an essential part of the influential punk to post-punk British band Wire. The first three bands the album released (Pink Flag, Chair Missing and 154) belong on the must listen to list of any eclectically oriented and healthily interested student of rock and roll. The songs on Newman's first solo LP, A-Z, were written for Wire's fourth album but their label rejected it and the band broke up. Backing up and fleshing out Newman's vocals and guitar work, producer Mike Thorn took up keyboards, Wire's drummer Gotobed kept the beat and Newman's boyhood chum Desmond Simmons handled bass and some guitar. The LP's first song is "I've Waited Ages" with impenetrably absurdist lyrics (below) and Enoesque sonically double reversed chipmunk noises starting at about 02:54 in and arguably going on too long (although the song's bass line and Newman's guitar crunches strive admirably to keep things afloat).

As promised, lyrics:

I've Waited Ages

I feel so wholesome I could cry
I got a chicken in my bandolier
I've hung it up to see if it would fall out
I've waited ages, but now I'm told
These things take time

Him work here all day
Him got his tonsils sprayed
Him got no time for utensils
Or words to that effect I'm deliberately diverging
Not the same but different you see

I've hung up to dry, my legs hanging out
Someone said to sew up the bottoms
But I can't reach, and a fall would break my nose
But still there's no harm in trying